Happy Birthday!

Last summer, we went to a family reunion in Northern Kentucky. A very big event was a Saturday trip to the brand new Creation Museum, proudly sponsored by my brother. We, um, had promised (yeah, promised, that’s it!) to take the ubi dubikids to the aquarium. As the trip came closer and closer, more and more of our relatives decided to join us on the aquarium trip. Even my brother’s son wanted to go with us (I’ve been to the creation museum, I’ve never been to the aquarium!). No dice though.

The ubi dubikids bought stuffed snakes at the aquarium gift shop. My niece and nephews dismissed them as “satan’s creatures”. Oh well.

I propose that we stop using the word “museum” altogether in reference to this abomination. A museum is something very specific and very special: A repository of knowledge in which items of scientific, historical, or cultural significance are made accessible to the public.

The Creation “Museum” does not meet that criteria. It’s not a museum at all, it’s a theme park.

Creation Science doesn’t exactly evolve…

But it does devolve.

Well, if I were in the area curiosity may get the better of me and I’d be tempted to go.

However, giving them $20 just to mock their theistarded stupidity might make me think twice.

Shorter Lewis:

Creation Museum can say “science is wrong”, but if Hemant says “Creation Museum is wrong” then that’s bashing.

Got it.

The Creation Museum says the National Academies of Science, all the scientists at Harvard, all the scientists at Duke, all the scientists Cambridge, at Oxford, at UCLA, at Princeton, at Yale, at every university in the word, and every scientist and paleontologist at the Smithsonian, at the American Museum of Natural History, at the Field Museum, at the Museum of Natural History in London, and at every scientific institution on the planet, all of them are wrong wrong wrong when they conclude, based on mountains of fossil evidence that non-avian Dinosaurs became extinct roughly 65 million years before man walked the earth.

The Creation Museum says that is incorrect. The Creation Museum says that “Man’s Reason” is at fault, and the true answer is that T-Rex was a vegetarian who ate coconuts and was a docile creature that lived with man. They actually say that T-rex’s razor-sharp, serrated, dagger-length teeth were for cracking coconuts.

If you believe that, I’ve got some nice land in Florida I can sell you.

So yes, they do say that science is wrong. If you have a science teacher who tells you that T-rex did NOT eat coconuts, she ate meat, then the Creation Museum says that’s wrong.

If you learned what all geologists working for Exxon and Shell and Mobil know: that coal and oil are from decayed plant matter layed down about 300 million years ago, then the Creation Museum says they’re wrong. Never mind that Exxon and Shell and Mobil shouldn’t be able to find these deposits under the earth without knowledge of plate tectonics, deep time, and all of the science and conclusions that science makes. If the oil companies had to toss away the science of deep geological time, they’d be lost!

They’d go broke trying to find oil and coal and natural gas reserves. Don’t you think, for a SECOND, that if Ken Ham was right, and science was wrong, that these money-grubbing oil companies would abandon old-earth, deep-time geology in a heartbeat and embrace “flood geology”?

I mean, really, wouldn’t they?

Thanks, Kelly.

Hello Siamang,
I am interested in dialog, but you’ve made some lofty statements that I don’t think hold true, and others that require more explanation. I wish after reading the books I’ve read on both sides of the fence, a few paragraphs could convince me back to the faith of Evolution.

By Evolution I mean that life spontaneously appeared, then in the process of time became all living creatures as we see them today.

You Said:
“The Creation Museum says… all the scientists, at…(named universities), (scientists) at every university in the word (I think you meant world), (are all wrong)”

First you should probably say “Secular Universities”, as I know there are some Non-Secular universities that support Creationism. Although I haven’t visited the museum, I am a theist.

I wasn’t there when T-Rex was eating, so I cannot comment on that, and neither can you. We don’t know what the diet of T-Rex contained. I don’t think he was a vegetarian though. I wouldn’t try to defend the T-Rex eating coconuts.

Lastly, I really don’t think any of the oil companies really care how old the oil is they are pumping, do they? It’s oil. It’s what they want. Looking at tectonics does not require being an Evolutionist, or believing that the world is Billions of years old. We see tectonics happening all around us. You are right in saying that we use science – observed phenomenon.

You said:
“If you learned what all geologists working for Exxon and Shell and Mobil know: that coal and oil are from decayed plant matter layed down about 300 million years ago”

I honestly don’t know how to date carbon based items like oil or coal. So that would be a good item to discuss. I don’t think it’s possible though.

I have a bigger problem with uranium isotope dating in current geology. If a person could convince me that there is a closed system somewhere on earth that could be tested (a closed system is required for accurate dating), I would be willing to take a look at it.

Isotope dating would be an area worthy of discussing concerning the age of the Earth. Could we open a blog to this discussion? (I haven’t checked to see if this has been discussed already.

Sincerely,
Lewis.

a few paragraphs could convince me back to the faith of Evolution.

I think you’re starting from the wrong place. “Evolution” isn’t a faith, any more than “gravity” is a faith. Evolution is merely a natural process, not a religion. Do you have the faith of photosynthesis? How about the faith of erosion?

By Evolution I mean that life spontaneously appeared, then in the process of time became all living creatures as we see them today.

Then I think you’ve got an incorrect idea of what science knows about evolution. “Spontaneous Appearance” is not part of evolutionary theory.

What we know about early life on earth tells us that life did not spontaneously appear.

First you should probably say “Secular Universities”

By all means no. I’m counting religious universities among the ranks of evolutionary science supporters. I’m talking about Notre Dame, Baylor, Wheaton, Pepperdine, Texas Christian University… religious universities all over the world which have biology departments. If they’re not diploma mills, and they’re not Divinity Schools… if they have biology departments, then they’re doing evolutionary biology.

I wasn’t there when T-Rex was eating, so I cannot comment on that, and neither can you.

Well now, that’s a combative thing to say, and I think an anti-intellectual argument. Of course we can know what T-Rex was eating. For instance, we can do this by examining what was in her stomach when she died.

To suggest that personally witnessing a thing is the ONLY valid way we can know something is frankly a breathtaking statement. Perhaps we should close our nation’s crime labs and history departments.

At this point, it sounds like your mind is made up. You’ve got the conclusion that you want, and you’re going to twist the rules of evidence until you can’t be proven wrong. You’ve made a safe little argumentation trick where the weight of evidence means nothing at all, because “well, were YOU there?”

Your use of the “well, were you there?” trick leads me to believe that you’ve got no open mind in this area. And anyway, if you really think this way, no evidence can possibly matter at all… so I should just save my breath with you.

I wasn’t there. Ken Ham wasn’t there. You weren’t there. But the EVIDENCE was there, and is here now.

I base my views on the evidence. I look at fossils to know what T-rex ate, and if I don’t know, I don’t say I DO know. Since we indeed have fossilized Edmontosauruses inside T-Rex stomach chambers, I don’t say the opposite just to suit my religious views.

I look inside the stomach of a fossilized T-rex to get my answer to the question “what did T-Rex eat.” Any other answer is an assertion made without evidence. Assertions made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

Lastly, I really don’t think any of the oil companies really care how old the oil is they are pumping, do they?

If they want to find it, then they have to know geology. They’ve got to be able to read the signs of deep time, and puzzle out the code of the early earth. You think there’s a big map of “where the oil is”? Nope. There isn’t. But there IS a map of how the earth has changed over the last 300MY. If “flood geology” was true, the oil companies would be using THAT to find the oil.

Funny they don’t, huh?

Looking at tectonics does not require being an Evolutionist, or believing that the world is Billions of years old. We see tectonics happening all around us.

In the last 6000 years, the pacific tectonic plate has moved a whole 590 yards. It’s a slow, slow process measured in centimeters per year. If you believe the 6000 year-old-earth thing, then my question is: WHAT plate tectonics? It’s barely moving at all. Just a couple of football-fields over. But is that what we see Exxon doing? Nope. They know that the earth was a very different place 300MYA. Vast carbon-forests covered wide green belts in the tropics. And then the earth changed… the continental plates moved and drifted. They need to know where the tropical lands of old have moved to. Without plate tectonics, they should just drill 600 yards north of the tropics! If we have a young earth, that’s where Exxon would be drilling. Not ALASKA!

But beyond this… if “Flood Geology” was an accurate, predictive theory for understanding the makeup and physical nature of the earth, SURELY the oil companies would have embraced it as the way to best find the world’s oil. Why haven’t they?

I honestly don’t know how to date carbon based items like oil or coal. So that would be a good item to discuss. I don’t think it’s possible though.

I think what you’re asking is: how can we be sure that dating methods are reliable? Ever ask a geologist that question?

Knowledge requires research. There’s an answer to this question… can you find it without visiting a creationist website? I won’t spoon feed you.

Knowledge is worth something. It’s worth a lot in fact… it’s worth the effort. If you really want to know, you can visit the library and open some books yourself, and do some reading. The answers are there, on the bookshelves of all the libraries in the world. The knowledge is there, free for the asking. It is EXTREMELY worth it.

If you won’t expend that effort, then you don’t really want to know, you just want it handed to you. Nobody handed it to me, I had to learn it myself.

Go visit a natural history museum, and ask questions. Lots and lots and lots of questions. Take a class or two at the local university offering extension courses. Read some textbooks not sold at religious bookstores. Talk to real geologists, real biologists, real paleontologists.

But start with the reading. Books, not websites. And real university science books, not creationist books.

If you don’t, then you didn’t really want to know badly enough anyway.

Thanks RBH. I bow to your brevity. I had some time to kill sitting at the computer tonight. Normally I don’t have the time for such lengthy replies, and really, yours is in the end probably vastly superior to mine!